(introduction...)

S.G. Srikantia. National Institute of Nutrition Jayalakshmipuram, Mysore. India

Abstract
Production of food grains
Upgrading nutrient quality
Meeting nutritional needs
References

Abstract

Nutrition is an important environmental factor that influences health, and adequate food intake is a prerequisite for good nutrition. Agricultural production is of crucial importance in ensuring that food needs are met. Countries with a high rate of population growth need to develop suitable agricultural strategies to increase food production. In addition to this quantitative aspect, there has to be concern for the qualitative dimension of food production. The mixed bag of produce should be able to satisfy "recommended allowances" of all nutrients needed for optimal nutrition.

Food production in India has increased substantially over the years. All food grains have, however, not increased uniformly. Production of cereals and millets has increased substantially but not that of pulses and oilseeds. In a country where the inclusion of pulses is important in increasing dietary protein content and for improving protein quality, this is a disturbing trend. At current levels of production, the recommendation of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMP) (1968) that a balanced diet should contain 70 grams of pulse, cannot be met. The revised balanced diet (1980) contains only 50 grams and this level can barely be met. Unless special efforts are made to increase pulse production, there is a real risk that recommended dietary allowances of pulses cannot be met.

Another qualitative aspect of food production has been India's efforts to identify, evolve, and propagate food-grain varieties with more-than-average nutrient content. Protein and lysine have received special attention. High protein/high lysine lines of cereals and millets have been identified, but have often been found not to breed true, for reasons not fully understood. Improving protein content and quality of staples was conceived as a method of improving the quality of diets, at a time when habitual Indian diets were considered to be protein-deficient. This concept has changed and the primary bottleneck is now believed to be energy. Cereal-pulse based diets have been found to be capable of meeting protein needs, when consumed in amounts that satisfy energy needs. The relevance of efforts to improve protein quality, therefore, needs re-evaluation.

At the national level, food production appears to be adequate to meet demands, provided there is equitable distribution. In actual practice many households do not get enough food because of poor purchasing power Among families whose daily per capita income is below Rs 3/-, over one half consumes an energy-deficient diet. A proportion of such households do not get enough protein either - a finding that explains the widespread childhood energy-protein ma/nutrition. The impressive buffer stocks of food grains held in recent years is a reflection of this low consumption. They would disappear should the purchasing capacity improve. Current levels of production under such circumstances would not be enough to build reserves.

Due to increased agricultural production, food-grain import has, normally, all but stopped. What has been achieved in the Indian agricultural situation has been the prevention of serious famines, which occurred in earlier years. But it does not appear to have made much impact on the widespread chronic malnutrition. To be able to reduce chronic malnutrition, increase in food production has to be of a magnitude larger than that seen at present. This alone will not suffice. Food grains have to be within the price range of the great majority. Also, national nutrition policy and national agricultural policy will have to be more compatible.

 

Nutrition is an important environmental factor that influences health and well-being. Consumption of diets adequate both in quantity and quality is a prerequisite for the maintenance of good nutritional status. Agricultural production that determines food availability is, therefore, an important determinant of food consumption, though not a critical one if food imports can be assured. Self-sufficiency in food production is of particular importance for developing countries, not only because they tend to have high rates of population growth, but also because such countries have malnutrition as a public health problem. The quantitative aspects of food production are undoubtedly of primary concern, but it cannot be forgotten that the qualitative aspects are extremely important, if optimal nutrition is to be provided. The interphase between agriculture and nutrition, therefore, acquires considerable practical importance. Some aspects of this interphase as they relate to India are briefly presented here.

Production of food grains

Food-grain production in India has risen considerably over the last three decades. The increase has indeed been spectacular - from around 50 million tons in 1951 to over 130 million tons in 1980 representing as it does a 2.5-fold rise. The true significance of this becomes apparent when it is viewed in terms of per capita availability at the national level. This has jumped from about 350 grams a day to around 470 grams, after allowances are made for food losses and reservation of seeds (table 1). The increase in production in the earlier part of the period was of a magnitude greater than the increase in population, and has subsequently kept pace with the population rise. The increased production has been achieved largely through an increase in the yield of grain per hectare, rather than from an increased cultivated area. The increase in production has been the result of widespread cultivation of new high-yielding varieties coupled with a package of agricultural inputs that permit the genetic expression of their high yield potential. As a result, from cereals, millets, and pulses alone (excluding oilseeds, sugar, roots, and tubers) dietary energy availability has gone up from 1,180 calories per capita daily, to 1,650 calories.

TABLE 1. Per Capita Food-grain Availability^a in India: 1951-1980

Year	Total production (million tons)	Net availability (million tons)	Per capita availability (g/day)
1951	50.8	44.4	337
1956	66.9	58.5	392
1961	82.0	72.3	430
1966	72.3	63.3	351
1971	108.4	94.9	473
1975	100.0	87.5	420
1978	126.4	110.0	475
1979	131.4	115.0	482
1980	132.0	115.5	470

1. Excluding oilseeds, sugar, roots, tubers, milk, and milk products
   Sources: Bulletin of Food Statistics 1975, 1979; Agricultural Situation in India, 1980

The increase in the production of different types of food grains has, however, not been uniform. While that of wheat has registered a sixfold increase from 6.4 million tons in 1951 to over 35 million tons in 1980, those of rice and millets have been less marked (table 2). This is particularly so since 1961, the increase in rice production between then and 1979 being around 60 per cent and that of millets only 30 per cent. Although the nutrient composition of rice, wheat, and millets does differ in several respects, and though the digestibilities of these staples are different, it is unlikely that this would have demonstrable nutritional significance. What, however, is of considerable nutritional importance is the failure of pulse production to increase between 1961 and the present. Following a 50 per cent increase between 1951 and 1961, there has been virtually no change over the last two decades. As a consequence, the per capita availability of pulses which stood at 70 grams per day in 1961, has now dropped sharply to about 45 grams (table 3). With an increase in cereal-millet availability, the pulse-cereal ratio has shown a marked distortion, falling from about 20 per cent to half that figure at present (table 4).

TABLE 2. Production of Rice, Wheat, and Millets in India: 1951-1979 (million tons)

	1951	1961	1971	1976	1979
Rice	20.6	34.6	42.2	48.7	53.8
Wheat	6.4	11.0	23.8	28.9	35.0
Milletsa	12.9	20.7	27.8	26.2	27.1

1. Bajra, barley, jowar, maize, ragi, and small millets.
   Source: Agricultural Situation in India, 1980.

TABLE 3. Per Capita Availability of pulses in India: 1951-1980

Year	Total production (million tons)	Net availability (million tons)	Per capita availability (g/day)
1951	8.4	7.3	55
1956	11.0	9.7	69
1961	12.7	11.1	70
1971	11.8	10.3	51
1976	13.1	11.5	51
1980	12.2	10.8	43

1. pulses are important sources of protein, lysine, riboflavin, and trace metals in the Indian diet
   Source: Agricultural Situation in India 1980.

TABLE 4. Per Capita Availability of Cereals and pulses Ratio 1951-1980

	Cereals and millets: g/day	Pulses g/day	Total g/day	Pulses as ratio of total
1951	282	55	337	19.5
1961	360	70	430	17.5
1971	422	51	473	19.5
1976	403	51	454	12.5
1980	427	43	470	10.7

The habitual Indian diet is predominantly vegetable-based, and foods of animal origin do not usually find a place because of their high cost. The inclusion of pulses in cereal-millet-based diets is critical not only in increasing the protein content, but also in improving the nutritional quality of the protein. pulses are also rich sources of several trace metals, whose essentiality to human beings is no longer in doubt. The present situation has, therefore, to be viewed with considerable concern. The balanced diet recommended by the Indian Council of Medical Research in 1968 contained 70 grams of pulses for an adult subject (Gopalan and Narasinga Rao 1968). A 25 per cent higher production level is needed to support availability at the individual level since allowances have to be made for losses. wastage, and seed purposes. At no time during the last three decades could the production level permit the inclusion of 70 grams of pulses daily. This figure was perhaps unnecessarily high, and, using linear programming, the least-cost balanced diet recommended recently (ICMR 1981) provides for only 40 grams of pulses per day. To be able to achieve this, the production level has to be over 50 grams a day - a figure that just about matches current production (table 5). This is indeed a disturbing situation, and proper corrective measures have to be introduced urgently if the situation is not to become worse. The danger is real, in the face of the very low per capita availability of foods of animal origin, including milk and its products.

TABLE 5. Per Capita Production Level^a of Calories and Pulses: g/day

	1951	1956	1961	1966	1971	1976	1980
Cereals	395	470	504	411	570	534	560
Pulses	63	76	78	45	60	57	49

1. Production level needed to meet recommended dietary allowances (RDA): cereals: 490 (1981 RDA), pulses: 53 (1981 RDA); 87 (1968 RDA).

Upgrading nutrient quality

A qualitative dimension to food production was built into Indian agriculture when attempts were begun years ago, to improve the nutritive value of cereals and millets through genetic engineering, made possible by the discovery of genes that control the concentrations of nutrients. Malnutrition is a major public health problem in India, particularly among pre-school children, and the major reason for this is the consumption of diets that do not provide adequate amounts of several nutrients. Among deficiency diseases, protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) is the most widespread, and based upon the belief then that the diets of children in whom PEM was prevalent, were deficient in protein - both in terms of quantity and quality - emphasis was laid on developing varieties of food grains that had higher-than-average protein content and a higher amount of lysine-the limiting amino acid in cereals. It was the discovery of high levels of lysine and tryptophan in the opaque 2 mutant maize, which initiated a search for similar characteristics in other foods, and subsequently varieties of cereals and millets with high protein and high lysine have been identified. When grown under apparently similar agronomic conditions in different parts of the country, they appear not to breed true. For example, when the same five varieties of sorghum were grown in two different locations - Dharwar and Indore - under the Co-ordinated Sorghum Project, those grown in Dharwar had lower amounts of protein than those grown in Indore. The extent of difference was not uniform. values were lower by 21 to 86 per cent, depending upon the variety (table 6). Values for lysine were lower in all varieties grown in Indore, a finding to be expected considering the known inverse relationship between protein and lysine concentrations . But the differences in lysine between the two locations could not all be accounted for by differences in protein alone, The concentration of leucine in the protein also showed changes from marginal to considerable.

TABLE 6. Nutrient Content of Five Sorghum Varieties Grown in Two Locations

Variety	Protein g/100 g		Lysine		Leucine
			g/16 g
	Da	Ia	D	I	D	I
CSV-1	7.7	9.8	2.6	1.9	11.7	9.7
CSV-2	7.0	10.7	2.3	1.6	11.5	12.4
CSV-6	7.7	13.1	2.1	-	11.0	13.9
SPV-8	7.6	12.6	2.2	1.5	11.1	12.3
SPV-40	6.0	11.2	2.5	1.9	13.1	13.0

1. D= Dharwar; I = Indore.
   Source: National Institute of Nutrition 1977.

This was also true of the nutrient content of red gram. Three varieties of red gram grown in four different locations showed that the protein content could vary by over 20 per cent without corresponding changes in either leucine or methionine, but with substantial differences in their riboflavin content. Another variety of red gram, C 11, grown in five locations, showed again that protein content could vary by over 28 per cent, the concentration of methionine by 55 per cent, and that of tryptophan by 100 per cent. Differences in the amino acid content seemed not to be related to differences in protein content (table 8).

TABLE 7. Nutrient Composition of Three Red Gram Varietiesa Grown in Four Different Locations

Location	Protein g/100 g	Lysine	Leucine	Methionine	Nicotinic acid	Riboflavin
		g/16g N			mg/100 g
Aurangabad	23.7	6.86	6.18	1 15	2.54	0.18
Delhi	21.7	6.88	6.27	1.34	2.55	0.20
Jabalpur	18.7	7.64	6.74	1.37	0.27	0.17
Hyderabad	21.5	6.65	7.05	1.21	2.47	0.15

a. Pusa-Ageti, Mukta-R 60 and AS-3, grown under similar agronomic conditions.
Source: National Institute of Nutrition 1975.

TABLE 8. Nutrient Composition of Red Gram Variety C-11, Grown in Five Locations

Location	Protein g/100 g	Tryptophan 8/16 g N	Methionine
Nagpur	25.2	0.8	0.9
Akola	25.1	0.4	-
Coimbatore	24.0	0.8	1.0
Aurangabad	22.8	0.5	-
Jabalpur	18.1	0.5	1.4

Source: National Institute of Nutrition 1978.

Such locational differences do not seem to be limited to nutrient composition. They seem to apply also to the concentration of the unusual amino acid oxalyl aspartic acid, present in Lathyrus sativus and believed to be the toxin responsible for neurolathyrism (table 9). They also seem to apply to the potential for supporting the in vitro production of the fungal toxin, aflatoxin (table 10).

TABLE 9. Toxin Content (Oxalyl Aspartic Acid in Varieties of Lathyrus sativus Grown in Different Locations

Variety	Range of toxin in nine locations
	mg/100 g	Fold variation
LSD-1	104-393	3.8
LSD-2	155-600	3.8
LSD-4	166-476	2.9
LSD-5	104-642	6.2
LSD-6	93-590	6.4
P-24	207-559	2.2

Source: National Institute of Nutrition 1978.

TABLE 10. Locational Differences in Aflatoxin Production Potential of Maize Varieties

Variety	Location	Aflatoxin production potential (ppm)
Shakti	Andhra Pradesh	510
	IARI, Delhi	403
DHM-10	Andhra Pradesh	455
	IARI, Delhi	208
B-19	Andhra Pradesh	406
	IARI, Delhi	162
B-23	Andhra Pradesh	480
	IARI, Delhi	63
Ganga-5	Andhra Pradesh	495
	Rajasthan	112

These findings suggest that it would not be easy to predict with any degree of confidence the nutrient composition of a variety of food grain that has a high protein potential. Apart from this practical consideration, improving protein content and protein quality was conceived as a method of improving the quality of the diet at a time when it was believed that protein was the limiting nutrient in Indian diets. This concept has now changed and the primary limiting nutrient is believed to be energy. Cereal-pulse-based diets of the type commonly eaten have a protein-energy ratio which is capable of meeting protein requirements, when consumed in amounts that satisfy energy requirements. It must be stressed that this is not to imply that there is no inadequacy of dietary protein. A fair proportion of subjects do have low protein intakes, but this is almost exclusively because total food intake is so low that both protein and energy become limiting (table 11). The relevance of efforts to improve protein quality by genetic manipulation, as a priority measure, therefore, needs re-examination, at least in the Indian context. Whether upgrading the lysine content is relevant may also be questioned, since in cereal-pulse-based diets, the first limiting amino acid is not lysine, but the sulphur-containing amino acids.

TABLE 11. Adequacy of Protein and Calorie Intake among Families in 1977

Category	Percentage of families in:
	Karnataka	Maharashtra	West Bengal	Uttar Pradesh
Protein adequate - calorie adequate	69.2	57.8	59.0	60.9
Protein inadequate - calorie inadequate	17.4	14.8	25.9	6.8
Protein adequate - calorie inadequate	11.6	27.4	14.1	32.3
Protein inadequate - calorie adequate	1.8	0.1	1.0	0.1

Source: National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau 1978

Turning to the availability of agricultural produces other than cereals and pulses, particularly edible oils and sugar, the situation is not an encouraging one. The per capita availability of both has gone up: that of edible oils and fats from 7.7 grams per day in 1951 to 13 in 1979, and that of sugar from 8.2 grams per day to 19.8 (table 12). Though higher now than three decades ago, these are still considerably lower than what the least-cost balanced diet recommends, which is 30 grams per capita per day (tables 13 and 14). These low availabilities are not without nutritional implications, particularly in the feeding of young children. The caloric density of cereal-pulse based diets is low - often around 1 to 1.2 calories per gram of cooked food, and a three-year-old child will have to consume over one kilogram of food to meet its energy needs. Bulk has, in fact, been known to be one of the constraints in satisfying the nutrient requirements of such children, unless the frequency of feeding is increased. A practical and easy way of increasing calorie density is to include fats and sugar - except that these two commodities are today not only in short supply, but also expensive. The recommended per capita intake of each of these food items is 30 grams per day and the effort needed to produce these quantities would be truly enormous.

TABLE 12. Per Capita Availability of Edible Oils and Sugar in India, 1951-1979

	Edible oils and vanaspati		Sugar
	kg/year	g/day	kg/year	g/day
1951	2.7	7.7	3.0	8.2
1956	3.2	8.8	5.0	13.7
1961	4.0	10.9	4.7	12.9
1966	3.5	9.6	5.7	15 9
1971	4.5	12.3	7.3	20.0
1976	4.3	11.8	6.2	17.0
1979	4.8	13.1	7.2	19.8

Source: Statistical Outline of India 1980.

TABLE 13. Per Capita Requirement of Food (g/day) at the National Level on the Basis of Least-cost Balanced Diets

Food	Physiological level	Retail level	Production level
Cereals	386	436	490
Pulses	43	47	53
Leafy vegetables	58	64	72
Other vegetables	45	49	55
Roots, tubers	40	44	50
Milk	200	220	248
Fats, oils	31	34	38
Sugar, jaggery	31	34	38

Source: Recommended Dietary Allowances ICMR 1981.

TABLE 14. Calculation of National Food Requirements

Per capita production

= Per capita recommended dietary allowance at physiological level

x 1.1 (10 per cent kitchen and other waste)

x 1.125 (for seeds and losses)

Provided that:

Distribution is according to requirements;

There are no constraints on purchasing power.

Meeting nutritional needs

At the national level, food production appears to be sufficient to meet the country's needs (table 13). In actual practice, however, food consumption does not follow normal distribution but is skewed. A large number of families with a daily income of Rs 2 or less consume diets that do not provide enough energy, and of these, a proportion do not get enough proteins - a finding that explains the widespread PEM among young children. The primary reason for such inequitable distribution is lack of purchasing power. The impressive stocks of food grains, amounting to about 18 million tons, held in recent years, is, in fact, a reflection of this low buying power and consumption. Stocks would have been far less impressive if people could have afforded to buy what they needed. Wages and incomes have gone up over the years but they do not seem to have kept pace with the rising costs of even essential food commodities. Data collected by the National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau show that food consumption has not changed significantly over the last few years.

Due to increased agricultural production in the country, food-grain imports have progressively come down and, during recent years, have all but stopped. The agricultural situation has also been able to prevent the serious widespread famines that used to occur in earlier years. Both are no mean achievements. But increased production seems to have made little impact on the widespread chronic malnutrition in the country, with all its health and developmental implications. The mean birth weight of infants born to mothers belonging to poor rural groups, which was 2.7 kg in 1951, has remained so even today. The proportional mortality rate whereby one-third of all deaths in the country in 1951 occurred among children below the age of five years, continues to be as high even today. Severe forms of protein-energy malnutrition such as kwashiorkor and marasmus were seen in 3 to 5 per cent of children of pre-school age three decades ago. Prevalence rates are not different now (table 15). Limited data available on mean body weight and height of adults show little improvement. There are, therefore, no indications that malnutrition has been contained in any way, despite improved food production.

TABLE 15, Nutritional Status of Pre-school Children

State	Percentage of children
	Normal	Grade 1	Grade 2	Grade 3	Clinical
Karnataka	9.7	41.6	42.6	6.1	6.6
Maharashtra	7.5	38.2	43.9	10.4	1.5
West Bengal	7.2	40.1	45.1	7.6	4.0
Uttar Pradesh	16.8	40.0	34.2	9.0	1.8

Source: National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau 1977.

Should it be possible to achieve a more equitable consumption of food in the coming years, the level of production, which apparently looks adequate at present, would cease to be so, for two main reasons. Buffer stocks can no longer be maintained at satisfactory levels. Also, children who from birth get enough food, would be able to fully express their genetic potential for growth and become bigger toddlers, bigger adolescents, and bigger adults, with clearly bigger food needs. The level of production would have to increase at a rate faster than that which the country has been able to achieve in the immediate past.

Increased agricultural production is a key factor in ensuring adequate food supplies. The agricultural policy of a country will have to take care of the relevant aspects of its nutrition policy, if the food needs of the population have to be met. Imbalances in production of different commodities have to be corrected and more importantly food has to be made available at a cost that the great majority can afford. Until such time, adequacy of agricultural production will be more apparent than real. It must not be forgotten that factors outside agriculture also have a role in influencing nutrition.

References

Gopalan, C., and B.S. Narasinga Rao. 1968. Dietary Allowances for Indians. Special Report Series No. 60, Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi.

ICMR. 1981. Recommended Dietary Intakes for Indians. Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi.

National Institute of Nutrition. 1975. Annual Report. Indian Council of Medical Research, Hyderabad.

_. 1977. Annual Report. Indian Council of Medical Research, Hyderabad.

_. 1978. Annual Report. Indian Council of Medical Research, Hyderabad.

National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau. 1977-1978. Annual Reports. National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad.